Noah's Brick

by Piers Anthony

  Jay and Gypsy were similarly together, trusting in each other as they assimilated the changes. Beryl's absence, though it was understood, made all of them uncomfortable. Their group of seven was no longer fixed.

  Meanwhile the six consulted with each other, slowly coming to terms with the new order. They had been chosen for what was likely to be the most important job in the world and the very idea was awesome.

  “I'm glad Beryl is happy,” Jay said. “But I hope she returns soon. We seem incomplete without her.”

  “I think we're stalling until Lyris can join us,” Gypsy said. “We're not ready to handle it all on our own.”

  “That, too,” he agreed.

  “Two more hours,” Rex said. “I'm almost done.”

  “How long does it usually take you to carve a gimcrack?” Gypsy asked.

  “That depends on the wood and the challenge. A week, usually. But this time I carved two I've done before, so it was faster. And Solita kept me going.”

  “I never pushed you!” Solita protested.

  “Just having you watch made me hurry, and you liked it when I made progress.”

  She smiled, satisfied with that explanation.

  When the two gimcracks were ready, Noah and Si exited the tree and he phoned Lyris. “We've got the toys. Do you want them now?”

  “Oh, yes! We have the details of the lease agreement worked out; all that's needed are the two remaining toys and the signing. The toy company is very pleased with the first sample.”

  “We're on our way,” he said. He popped into the Ark to fetch Rex.

  They hiked rapidly to the house. “I can't get over how this is Vermont and not New Mexico,” Si said. “Even though I've seen stranger things recently.”

  “It's not Kansas either,” Rex said. “It's matter transmission, something only the aliens have.”

  Noah's father was home when they got there, together with Hank, the agent. “I have the contract ready,” Hank said. “And the check. You have the toys?”

  Rex handed them over. Hank played with them a moment, observing their distinctive motions. “It will do,” he said.

  “I am signing as the responsible adult,” Lyris said. She glanced at Rex. “You're sure?”

  “Yes.”

  She signed three copies of the document and gave it to Hank. Hank handed her the check. Then he departed with two copies and the two gimcracks. It was done.

  “Now just tell us what you need,” Lyris said. “We will do our best to get it.”

  “I—I think we need for you to come to the Ark,” Noah said. “Things—things have been happening, and we need your advice.”

  “The adult perspective,” she agreed. She glanced at her husband. “You will want to get that check deposited promptly. Then you can return here and mind the children until I return.” She meant Noah's brother and sister.

  “Got it,” he agreed. Noah thought he looked better already; the money for the toys had freed him from being locked into a bad situation.

  Lyris and the three children started walking. “What about dad's job?” Noah asked.

  “That is on hiatus. He is on leave without pay while he handles essential personal business. The size of that check means he can quit the job if he wants to, and he may do that.” She tousled Rex's hair. “This is what your carvings are doing for us. You have in effect hired us to assist you.”

  “That's fine, ma'am,” Rex said, plainly loving the attention.

  “Now what is it that has happened to shake you up?” Lyris asked. “I can pick up the tension in all three of you.”

  It poured out from them as they walked: the merging of the Bricks and Beads, the formation of the Sphere, the alien holo message, the concept of the Garden, the contact with the other group, and Beryl's transfer to the other Ark. “It shakes us up,” Noah concluded. “This is bigger than we thought, and it scares us. I mean, the aliens seem goodhearted, if they even have hearts, but the sheer responsibility—we're not used to anything like that.”

  “And the idea of moving animals to the Garden,” Si said. “How can we move lions or elephants?”

  “I will study the situation,” Lyris said. “I suspect I shall have to visit this Garden with you to assess the prospects. But the Ark Angels surely provided a way.”

  Si and Rex laughed. Ark Angels! But it fit.

  “I guess,” Noah said. “But we think they're not here. They moved on to other systems, leaving the details up to us.”

  “And the devil is in the details,” Lyris agreed, smiling.

  They reached the tree, and Noah keyed them in, as the other artifacts did not affect this one. They stood in the Ark.

  Jay, Gypsy, and Solita were there. They took rapid turns hugging Lyris. She had, indeed, become their den mother. “I feel as if I have just come home,” she said. “And I'm not even part of the crew.”

  “But we need you here,” Rex said seriously.

  “She has a neat word for the aliens,” Si said. “Ark Angels.”

  “That's perfect,” Gypsy said.

  “I see Beryl is absent, as you indicated,” Lyris said, looking around. “She was the odd one out, with no partner, so was evidently alert for one elsewhere.”

  “Yes,” Gypsy agreed. “It's funny that the ark makes us want to form couples, even though we're not of breeding age yet, but makes it impossible for everyone to have a partner.”

  “Everything they have set up makes so much sense,” Jay agreed. “Except that.”

  Lyris smiled. “They surely have reason. We just have to figure it out.” Then she paused. “And I think it just came to me: if there are a number of Arks with their crews, perhaps one for each continent, which makes sense, how do they coordinate with each other? It is the whole world that needs saving, not just one or two continents. They need to know what the others are doing, because one thing affects others. The answer is to make sure they will connect, by encouraging the odd members to pair with members of other arks. Thus Beryl with Sven, and the other extra boy there will find a girl on one of the other arks. They are liaisons, so that the whole fleet will interconnect.”

  “They've got our number,” Jay said, laughing.

  “They do. Now I would like to see this holo show you described, so I can get a proper handle on the alien purpose myself.”

  “Hey, Beryl's back,” Jay said. “I just handed her in.”

  “Just in time,” Gypsy said. “We probably need her to put her Bead in the blob, to get the holo.”

  Beryl appeared, making a cute moue. “I thought maybe you wanted me for my company.”

  “That too, I guess,” Si said, and they all laughed.

  “Well, I want your company,” Lyris said, hugging her. “They were about to show me the alien holograph.”

  “How did things work out with the gimcracks?”

  “We licensed them to a toy company for a lot of money. Now we should be able to arrange any outside assistance you need, without publicity.”

  “Good. Because we don't know what we'll need. The boys of Ark Euro are concerned too, because they don't trust any of their families to do the right thing.”

  “That may be a qualification for admittance to an Ark,” Lyris said. “A person has to be not only smart and curious, with an open mind about bricks and holes, but also be a loner without really strong family attachments. So that he or she will be satisfied to leave family and community behind and commit fully to the program.”

  “That fits most of us,” Gypsy said. “I like it here, and I like being with Jay and the rest of you. It's better than what I'm leaving.”

  “But what about me?” Noah asked. “I'm mostly bored at home, and I sure don't need school, but I don't want to leave my parents behind. I don't fit the mold.”

  “You're only half a fit,” Si agreed. “But maybe you're like Beryl: there's a reason you're different.”

  “I'm different?” Beryl asked.

  “No boyfriend,” Si said. “At least, not here. Lyris figured
it out: somebody has to connect to another Ark, so they can all coordinate around the world. So in every Ark there's at least one who has to couple with someone in another Ark. You're it, for us.”

  Beryl nodded. “I guess you're right. I always had so much attention from boys I was sick of it. But then the rest of you got boys, and I missed it.”

  “The Ark does it,” Gypsy said. “It makes us want to be couples, so when we grow up we'll be fruitful and multiply. Within limits.”

  “And those limits will surely be enforced, one way or another,” Lyris said. “You won't be able to breed indiscriminately.”

  “So we understand why there's an extra person on each Ark,” Noah said. “But why should I want to hold on to my parents? I mean, from the alien viewpoint?”

  “Because we need Lyris,” Gypsy said. “And I'll bet the kids on the other Arks will need her too, or someone like her. That adult perspective counts.”

  Beryl nodded. “Sven needs a mother in his life, one he can trust, and he's not the only one. But they don't have one.”

  “That's a fair assumption,” Lyris said. “It may be correct, or there may be some other reason. For example, the biblical Noah needed to collect pairs of animals to save, which meant he had to negotiate with the outside world, at least on occasion.” She smiled. “There's a joke about that: someone had a pair of unicorns, but demanded too high a price, and Noah couldn't afford it, so they missed the Ark. That's why there are no unicorns on Earth today.”

  All the children laughed. “I wondered,” Solita said. “I always liked unicorns.”

  “So if we need a special animal from a zoo or something, you'll get it?” Rex asked.

  “We'll try,” Lyris said. “But we were thinking more of video players and clothing that the aliens may not have seen the need for.”

  “And we do want clothing,” Solita said. “You guys are great, but I don't want to be naked here.”

  Jay opened his mouth to say something, but Rex cut him off. “Can it.”

  Jay looked embarrassed, realizing that humor about seeing a naked girl was not in order. Solita could hardly be blamed for being sensitive, and Rex was responsive to that. She was not the only one; Noah had caught Si's nod of agreement. The girls had issues the boys didn't, at least in this respect.

  “Let's see the holo,” Lyris said.

  They gathered in the central chamber and put their artifacts together. The big glittering bubble formed. But this time it did not make an animated picture. It formed a globe. The globe of Earth, with North America topmost.

  “This is not the same video we saw before,” Noah said.

  “I gathered that,” Lyris said. “Evidently the program thinks that one viewing is enough. This is Chapter Two. I think I can handle it.”

  There was a tiny mote hovering above the continent. “The Ark!” Jay exclaimed.

  Then the globe rotated, and the continent of South America came up with an Ark over it. “We were there,” Gypsy said.

  It turned again, and Europe appeared, with its Ark. Then Asia, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica. “Seven Arks in all,” Rex said. “Though there won't be many animals on Antarctica, aside from penguins.”

  “Maybe there were animals when the maps were made,” Noah said. “And they forgot to update that one.”

  “Or there are creatures we don't know about,” Gypsy said.

  The globe returned to North America. Now a second image appeared, superimposed on the first. It looked identical, only in miniature.

  “A mini Earth?” Gypsy asked, perplexed. “It's only about one percent the size of the other.”

  “That's still pretty big,” Rex said. “Earth's eight thousand miles in diameter. If this is one percent, that's eighty miles, the size of an asteroid. North America would be thirty miles across. A hefty hike.”

  “That's the Garden!” Solita exclaimed. “The Garden of Eden. Just like Earth, only smaller.”

  “And unspoiled,” Si said thoughtfully.

  “A refuge,” Lyris agreed. “Where creatures can be safe from the present poisoning of the world. It doesn't have to be large, merely large enough.”

  “The Garden,” Lyris murmured. “But if animals have to be transferred there, how is that done?”

  The small sphere moved town toward the large one. It touched a section.

  “That's Yellowstone,” Beryl said. “I've been there.”

  “And it looks as if the Garden ball Yellowstone is touching it,” Rex said.

  “And where they touch, maybe animals can cross,” Noah said.

  “And that's how,” Lyris said. “If you learn to control the Garden, to move it around, you can do that. Perhaps touch the ground at that spot, form an overlap, and let the animals walk onto it. Then float away, carrying them along.”

  “We might have to herd them,” Rex said. “But I guess we could do it.”

  “I think we need to take a closer look at the Garden,” Lyris said. “To make sure it is what we think it is.”

  The foreground darkened, obscuring the two globes. Something was taking shape. In fact it formed a tunnel. A tunnel to the Garden.

  They all stared. At the far end of the tunnel they could see the light of the refuge. The Ark had responded to Lyris' words, or more likely, her thought.

  “Is that real?” Jay asked. “Or just a picture?”

  “It's real,” Beryl said. “Just as my crossover to the Euro Ark was real. The pictures here are real. Let's go.” She boldly stepped into the image globe, and into the tunnel.

  “She has shown the way,” Lyris said. “We should follow.”

  They followed. They stepped into the tunnel, and it was solid beneath their feet. They walked inside it.

  In just a few steps they were at the other end. They stepped out on the landscape of Yellowstone, with its volcanic fissures and verdant foliage.

  “But this doesn't look much like what I saw,” Beryl said.

  “This is unspoiled,” Lyris said. “As it was before mankind came here, thousands of years ago.”

  There was a sound. “Hey!” Jay exclaimed. “A rattlesnake! And it bit me!”

  Lyris checked immediately as the snake slithered away. “Where?” she asked tersely.

  “There on the calf. I felt it.”

  “There's no mark.”

  Jay looked. He rubbed his hand across his calf. There was nothing. “But I felt it,” he repeated.

  “The teeth didn't penetrate,” Lyris said. “Either you were extremely lucky, or--”

  All of them looked at her. “Or what?” Rex asked.

  “Or you are invulnerable to any such attack.”

  “I sure don't know why,” Jay said, clearly shaken.

  “Because this is the Garden,” Gypsy said. “No attacks allowed.”

  “But then how do the predators eat?” Rex asked.

  It was Solita who came up with the likely answer. “If we're supposed to take care of things, we can't be afraid of the animals. So maybe we're protected. We don't hurt them and they don't hurt us. We don't have to worry about them.”

  “That's crazy!” Jay said.

  Rex was quick to take Solita's side. “Maybe not. See the swarms of mosquitoes here? Why aren't they biting us?”

  Noah looked at his own bare arms and legs. Mosquitoes were all around them, but he had not been bitten. “It must be true,” he said. “Nothing attacks us. Or maybe they do, but they can't get at is. We've got invisible shields.”

  “Something else,” Lyris said. “Where are the mammals? Shouldn't there be herds of buffalo, or rabbits, or something?”

  “We concluded that there are none, in the Garden,” Noah said. “You weren't here then. But let's double check to be sure.”

  They all looked around. They found snakes, and frogs in the warm ponds, and there were birds in the trees, but no sign of mammalian life.

  “I think we have found a significant difference between the Garden and the outside world,” Lyris said. “If we check the wor
ld, we'll find mammals galore, along with the works of mankind. But here in the Garden there is none of that.”

  “We're excluded!” Si said. “Like the spiders and squids. Because we'd just ruin it.”

  “But the bunnies wouldn't ruin it,” Gypsy said. “Why ban them?”

  “Bunnies could ruin it,” Jay said. “They did in Australia. No natural enemies, and they spread all over, eating up all the plants. Pigs could do the same, and rats. They wipe out other species by taking their food.”

  “Um, yes,” she agreed. “You need natural enemies.”

  “Maybe the aliens, operating from a long distance, couldn't be that specific,” Lyris said. “They could eliminate a whole class of life, but not one species out of many. Not without seriously upsetting the balance. So to get rid of mankind, they had to get rid of the whole category of warm-bodied land creatures.”

  “But that's not the natural world,” Beryl said. “I can see taking out the humans, sure, but the other mammals should be here.”

  “They're all dangerous,” Jay insisted.

  “That must be our job,” Rex said. “To put the mammals back in. All except the people.”

  “And to do it safely,” Solita said. “That's more than I know how to do.”

  “More than any of us know how to do,” Noah said. “We're children.”

  “I think we need to go back to school,” Si said. “To learn what we need to know, to do the job right. Otherwise there's no point.”

  “That goes for the Euro Ark too,” Beryl said. “They don't know any more than we do, and I'll be the other Arks don't either. We're all children.”

  “That's the problem,” Si said. “We have to be young enough and ignorant enough to have open minds, but then we don't know enough. It's a trap.”

  The others considered, appreciating her point. Was it a paradox?

  “And sort of isolated,” Jay said. “So we don't have strong connections to the regular world, and can leave it without much qualm. The Bricks must have selected for that, along with intelligence.”

  “But it's not perfect,” Gypsy said. “That same alienation that frees us from Earth leaves some of us hurting for a mother. The Euro Arkers too, I think.”